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BBC iPlayer bankrupts ISPs

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guest:
El Reg has an article up quoting Plusnet who have seen "costs" increase by 200% since the introduction of the iPlayer streaming service. I can't make head nor tail of the actual costs quoted but perhaps someone else can?

Article is here :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/20/iplayer_isps_broke/

roseway:
I don't really understand what 'costs' they are talking about, but the general principle comes as no surprise. I've always thought that it's crazy to clog up the internet (a wired system) with entertainment material which can be transmitted much more efficiently by wireless methods. It shouldn't be beyond the wit of man or woman to devise a system in which the customer controls what information is being viewed using the internet, but the material is delivered by wireless.

It's difficult to see a way out of this probable crisis, unless someone with very deep pockets is prepared to cable up the whole country.

kitz:
Havent looked at the actual costs - either - but what they are saying does seem to ring true.

We all know how expensive CBC IPStream can work out for the ISPs if they have to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to ensure decent speeds at peak time.   Too many ISPs of late have had appalling speeds during peak.

A couple of years ago when I did the " capacity report" for elsewhere it was generally accepted that the costs worked out at approx £1 per GB net for the ISP just for the Central pipes - nvm other costs and transit costs.
BTw (exchange) costs have come down slightly since then...  but the central costs hasnt come down that much.

I've seen some figures showing that average usage for users over the past year or so has increased - mostly due to the likes of youtube and other streaming services..  (if I have time I'll try find them and dig them out) .... I dunno if its a 200% increase though...  but iirc  the ones I saw showed an increase of something like 150%.. so yeah what they are saying could well be feasible now.

>> I've always thought that it's crazy to clog up the internet (a wired system) with entertainment material which can be transmitted much more efficiently by wireless methods

Totally agree.

guest:
There's a link to a Plusnet blog (http://community.plus.net/blog/2008/02/08/iplayer-usage-effect-a-bandwidth-explosion/) which explains the reasoning.

Well I think it explains the reasoning but frankly life's too short to read that lot :P Plusnet are owned by BT so all the money is heading in the same direction anyway - I have zero sympathy for moans about "costs" increasing at any BT-owned ISP :)

The iPlayer is nothing but good news for BT if it increases traffic by 200% per user.

guest:

--- Quote from: roseway on February 21, 2008, 10:35:09 AM ---I've always thought that it's crazy to clog up the internet (a wired system) with entertainment material which can be transmitted much more efficiently by wireless methods.

--- End quote ---

Well for live-ish TV if the TV companies, BT and ISPs actually made an effort then multicast is more efficient than "wireless methods" as its not hogging chunks of (very limited) radio spectrum. It isn't currently in BTs interests to make this work properly though and the BBC seem to be the only UK TV company who have even considered multicast, which is odd to say the least as this is exactly what it was designed for. Personally I believe this is where garbage like "Bid-up TV" and the like belong, and not on Freeview, which has way too many channels taking up limited bandwidth. Put them online and Freeview can start facing up to what its going to do about HD-quality video streams amongst other things. Lots of vested interests here hanging onto their frequency allocation so there's another problem :(

Regarding on-demand programming - I don't see much option in the medium term other than to have local caching. i.e. physically locate the most accessed media data as close as possible to the end-user - probably in a rack at the exchange. It wouldn't be too hard (or expensive) to simply mirror the BBC's iPlayer files and divert requests for those to the kit in the exchange especially given that the size of the exchange naturally limits the number of concurrent streams being served. Who pays and the usual copyright/DRM nonsense will delay this I reckon. Oh and of course its not really in BTs interests to do this as they'd lose revenue on central pipes.

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